House - medieval

The National Monuments Service's description

In 1383-84 the abbot of the Cistercian Duiske Abbey, Graiguenamanagh ‘Abbas de Dowysky’ is listed as a burgess of Kilkenny, indicating he had a property in the town (Curtis 1931, no. 62). This site can be equated with what was to become the Rothe family house, Parliament Street (KK019-026085-) in the later 1500s, via a reference in a 1594 deed of Patrick Grante, Waterford, to the tenth Earl of Ormond: ‘Two shillings yearly rent out of a messuage and garden in said town where John Rothe fitz Piers dwells, parcel of the possessions of the abbey of Dowske’ (Curtis 1943, no. 89). Very little is known about the townhouse of the Cistercian abbot as most of it appears to have been swept away when the Rothe complex was constructed 1594-1610, but some features that may be associated of it have been uncovered in excavations. A stone-lined cesspit, which yielded early to mid-14th-century pottery (Saintonge Sgraffitto), as well as 13th/14th-century Kilkenny-type and Leinster Cooking Ware, and archaeobotanical remains, was recorded during an archaeological excavation (09E0572) by Cóilín Ó Drisceoil in the present yard to the rear (W) of the third (westernmost) house in the Rothe complex (Ó Drisceoil 2010, unpublished; 2013, 137-8). The NW corner (the N and W walls) of the pit (int. dims. 1.2m N-S x 0.8m E-W; D 1.05m) was exposed in the excavation. The walls of the pit were battered and bonded with lime-mortar. Twelve individual deposits were excavated within the cesspit, arranged in alternating layers of cess and ‘damping’ deposits of stone/sandy clays. The cesspit pre-dates the building of the Rothe House complex 1594-1610 and was probably constructed when the burgage plot on which it stands was in the possession of the abbot of the Cistercian Duiske Abbey. The backfilled cesspit was covered by a 17th-century N-S wall which divided the yard. The cesspit remains in situ. Cobbling that was probably broadly contemporary with the excavated cesspit was also uncovered in excavations (92E0123) in the House 3 yard by Neil O'Flanagan (O'Flanagan 1994, 49; 1994, unpublished). A cutting between the E wall of the early 17th-century third (westernmost) house and a well, constructed in 1604 on the S side of the middle courtyard of the complex, demonstrated that this 17th-century well had been built over one half of a pre-existing, much larger, rectangular well of medieval date (ibid.). Partial excavation of its infill to a depth of 1.4m (not bottomed) yielded household waste, 13th/14th-century Saintonge, Rouen/Caen and Kilkenny-type pottery, iron nails, hooks, metal slag and animal bones, indicating it predated the construction of the Rothe House complex and was probably related to the Cistercian period of occupancy. An E-W running stone culvert, which had been blocked and built over by the rear (W) wall of the first house when it was built in 1594, may also be related to this period (Ó Drisceoil 2011, 213-14), as can a fragment of an E-W running wall (0.6m Wth.) found beneath the footings of the W wall of House 2 and two large pits which had been built over by the early 17th-century link building ('outscale') on the N side of the middle courtyard (ibid.). Pits that predated House 3 may also belong to this phase in the site's history (Halpin 1991). In the rear garden, the backlands of the medieval burgage plot that ran up to the town wall in the W, excavations documented medieval refuse pits, remnant horticultural soils, a burgage fence and a stone-lined well (< 7.5m D. x 1m int. diam.), its construction dated by associated ceramics to the 13th/14th centuries (Ó Drisceoil 2008, 34-47).

See attached:
KK019-026215-_01 Plan of excavation
KK019-026215_02 Photographic overview of excavation

Compiled by: Cóilín Ó Drisceoil

Date of revised upload: 30 March 2022

References

Ó Drisceoil, C. 2013 Rothe House (third courtyard), Parliament Street, Kilkenny (09E0572). In I. Bennett (ed.) Excavations 2010: summary accounts of excavations in Ireland, No. 422, 137-8. Bray. Wordwell.

Ó Drisceoil, C. 2010 Preliminary Archaeological Excavation Report: Yard to the rear of the Third House, Rothe House, Parliament Street (09E0572). Unpublished report. Kilkenny Archaeology.

O'Flanagan, N. 1994 Excavations at Rothe House, Kilkenny, Co. Kilkenny 1992-3. ADS Ltd. Unpublished report.

Halpin, A. 1991 Report on archaeological excavation at Rothe House, Kilkenny. ADS Ltd.
Unpublished report.

Ó Drisceoil, C. 2008 The Rothe Family Garden Rediscovered: an interim report on the 2007 archaeological excavation project. Old Kilkenny Review 60, 34-47.

Ó Drisceoil, C. 2011 Rothe House, Parliament Street, Kilkenny: late Tudor townhouse (05E0598 ext.). In I. Bennett (ed.), Excavations 2008: summary accounts of excavations in Ireland, 213-14, no. 719. Bray. Wordwell.

O'Flanagan, N. 1994 'Rothe House’, Parliament Street, Kilkenny: 17th-century house (92E0123). In Bennett, I. (ed.), Excavations 1993: summary accounts of archaeological excavations in Ireland, 49, no. 137. Bray. Wordwell.

Curtis, E. 1943 (ed.) Calendar of Ormond Deeds 1584-1603 A.D. Vol. 6. Dublin. The Stationery Office.